Caro Liddell Biography

Caro LIDDELL immigrated to Australia in 2001 and became an Australian citizen on August 19th 2005. She lives in the Minyon falls area above Byron Bay in Northern New South Wales. Liddell was first noticed by Michael Fox of Fox Galleries, during her first solo show in Australia, entitled ‘New Work 2003 ‘.-The show consisted of large paintings along with a new suite of abstract drawings. This lead to Fox Galleries showing Liddell’s work in collaboration with Metro Arts later the same year. The show was entitled ‘Palimpsest’ and featured major works from her London period, work influenced from her Bundanon Residency and new work from that year. Here she gained a reputation for her large abstract contemporary paintings and fine abstract drawings, created with graphite, pastel and wash.
Her work was published in 2004 by Fox Galleries, in a publication entitled ‘the field’, the title of her exhibition held that year. It has been widely distributed through out schools, Art schools & galleries. In 2004 a 30 minute documentary was made of Liddell, she discusses her work of the last eight years and elucidates on her working process. It has been distributed and studied though out the Educational establishments.

Liddell did not attend college till 1997, but carved out a reputation for her self as a printer, working in print studios through out London. After a travel period in Australia she produced a series of prints reflecting her vibrant experiences of outback Australia. They where noticed by the Australian art dealer and cultural attaché Rebecca Hossack. Hossack first noticed Liddell’s work in 1990 while she was working for an art publisher making erotic pop-up books. Through this association with Hossack, Liddell developed a significant reputation in the UK over the next decade. In an idiosyncratic way she firstly completed a Masters degree in Barcelona. Followed by a Batchelor of Arts at Winchester School of Art in the UK. She maintained solo exhibitions at the Hossack gallery through out her studies- Her work has sold to private contemporary art buyers and collectors of Fine Art.

She was ‘artist in resident’ at Intaglio Printmakers in Bermondsey London. Here she had the scope, time and opportunity to experiment with materials. Liddell’s particular interest within printmaking is the deeply etched copper plate. These are large prints, produced in series of small editions. Pic – me with tapas etching
“ Transmigration & Other Journeys” was to début her first paintings & large prints. We see the development of her work, “ becoming more considered & shorn of embellishment, more ghostly and reflective, more deeply felt’.
( see review Luke Elwes. Galleries Art Review London 1998)


She was awarded a residency in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory,
co-ordinated by Hossack and Coo-ee Aboriginal Art. At the time she was just as occupied with the physical challenge as she was with the artistic challenge. Working and living in a tin shed, she drew and sketched in hard back sketch books while enduring the unaccustomed heat, insects and spiders. The vastness of the Australian outback, to which she had been so attracted during her first visit a decade earlier, influenced her paintings. She found herself beginning to work on a much larger scale than before.

This residency culminated in a series of work concerned with journeying, caught between two continents, a theme of man versus marsupial. ‘Pods’ portrays large vessels containing embryonic marsupial creatures, setting out on a voyage or maybe a ‘quietus’, the title of a very large piece painted while at college. Animal and man feature together in ‘Man Marsupial’ merging into teratogenic creatures. Literature and animal behaviour has always been a fascination to Liddell, spending long hours observing and sketching. In London she frequented Zoological Museums & libraries.Pic – me with pods painting

Through a series of events over the course of a decade her work became more associated with what she describes as “the incredible natural and spiritual elements Australia possesses” as her future led her into greater contact with Australia, Australians and Australian-ness. In 2005 Liddell became an Australian citizen and now considers herself an official Australian artist.

After college she became Artist in Resident at Intaglio Printmakers in Bermondsey London. This was to enable her to embark on a period of study refining her particular interest in deep intaglio etching and use of colour on the one copper plate.
This was to culminate in an exhibition at Intaglio and a solo at the Hossack Gallery entitled ‘Transmigration & Other Journeys’ a unique series of etchings concerned with the human and animal world. This was also to debut her first paintings most recognised from this period ‘24 Ways to Say Kangaroo’, this painting brought together ideas of communication through body language.

Her second Australian residency was awarded by the Arthur Boyd Trust at Bundanon in 1999-2000, here she focused on the Shoalhaven River. The sketches and paintings created while at Bundanon and back in the studio, reflect her vision and feelings about her state of limbo between England and Australia. Her work seems to be asking questions reflecting her own personal situation. Are rivers barriers or gateways? Are the sand bars islands of security or prisons of isolation? Undoubtedly the decision to permanently migrate to Australia, influenced her thinking at the time. The resulting works are grounded yet ethereal and urge contemplation.

Liddell made good use of her time at Bundanon, and sketched and drew each day of her stay, in order to “keep a constant connection between the eye, the spirit and the image”. The large canvases, which are the signature marks of her work, are derived from this intimate process. She firstly builds up a series of studies by way of drawings, prints and smaller oil paintings. Next she produces a series of oil sketches on both paper and canvas to achieve a particular colour or patina. “Like the drawn line, colour is a personal signature. I work with oil paint as its natural origins give the colours a vitality and subtlety that is incomparable.” Finally the painting is embarked on with its considered layers and form.

In 2002 Caro finally moved to Australia and established a studio in the beautiful Minyon Falls area near Byron Bay in northern New South Wales. The following year she travelled to southern China shortly before her first major Australian exhibition, “Palimpsest” held at Metro Arts, Brisbane.
The physicality of this subject matter carried over into the creation of the works for “The Field” exhibition. ‘The pastel and graphite works on paper are perhaps the most accessible of these artworks, however closer examination reveals that they too have been subjected to the force of the artist, “achieved by an assault upon the thickly pastelled surface, either with a hammer or a piece of graphite, and even a fistful of nuts”.

Digby Hildreth, ‘Human endurance on a grand scale” Courier Mail, August 19 2004
“ The Field” exhibition also saw the culmination of a long-held desire to work in both a sculptural and installation manner. Though “The 12 Apostles” may appear on the surface to be Judeo-Christian, its message is also timely to the age we all find ourselves in. Ultimately, the deeper investigations of the human soul is the transcending quality of Liddell’s work, that connects the viewer to the image in art. The writer John Birmingham described as both “beautiful and disturbing”

2005 finds Liddell coming full circle working with matter regarding the Australian marsupial, this time in the form of their scats. Influenced by the paddocks around her studio, she has observed the marsupials comings goings, tracks and scats. Drawing large abstract fields, sculpting enormous curvaceous scats of the pademelons, swamp wallaby, possums and echidna . Liddell’s’ work continues to develop, while maintaining a universal language, it is consummately grounded in its Australian-ness.

References:
‘The field publication’, Fox Galleries ,Michael Fox, Dominick Reyntiens
“ Lawyers name artist winner”, The Extra newspaper, London, August 8 1996
“ Transmigrations and Other Journeys”, media release, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, October 1998
Jackson, Vanessa, reference for Caro Liddell, May 5 1997
Elwes, Luke, Galleries, London Gallery Guide, October 1998.
Hildreth, Digby, “Human endurance on a grand scale”, Courier-Mail, August 19 2004
Birmingham, John, note to Caro Liddell, Palimpsest exhibition, Metro Arts, Brisbane November 7 2003.